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So after another mostly sleepless night, I am getting ready to meet with the Mom and Mom-in-Law to go to the annual Broad Ripple Art Fair here in Indianapolis. We decided it would be a good excuse to get together (since all of us are so often busy including last weekend on Mothers Day) and hang out all day. I love stuff like Art Festivals. It would be great if they translated better to music. There WILL be a bunch of performances there, but too bad there's not an effective way for musician to each have booths and little performances going on etc. Some of that happens at NAMM, though it's not open to the general public. There's also Fan Fare in Nashville and some music conferences like South By Southwest, but those often lack spontaneity and access for the average little guy/gal/band. Nonetheless, any reason to get creative types some exposure is a win in my book. We still have a mostly undecorated large house, so we'll be on the look out for some new wall hanging or nick nac to add to the building clutter.

While this week passed by relatively uneventfully for many, I am amazed at how little talk/discussion/interest there was in the primary elections that took place recently (okay if you're from the US, can you answer when your local primary election was?). As an independent voter, I really don't get to vote in these primaries which kind of sucks but it's the system we have. In any given race, I usually have a preference in one party or the other, but we can't vote for them unless we pigeonhole ourselves into one party or the other. (For those outside of the US, yes, for all intent and purposes, there's rarely more than 2 choices.. and in many of the primaries this year, the candidates ran unopposed). Sadly in the US, the incumbent has far less chance of being ousted than a politician does in Russia. Who's really got the open choices here? Not the US that's for sure.

I don't recall seeing a single recap story about our local elections here in Indianapolis and hardly any at all around the country even on the 24 hour news stations. I bet if you asked people honestly, over half may not even be aware that an election recently happened across the US. It certainly didn't get many people fired up. Even though I've spoken with many of our Indiana office holders in the last few months (they probably think I am a pain in the ass.. I go out and press the issue to communicate with them, often evoking a bit of shock that a constituent really knows they exist.. most seem to serve in a vacuum), I can't honestly assure you that they won their primaries. (But as I said above.. it's highly unlikely they didn't.. nor will they likely lose re-election.. it's so automatic regardless of the party). I encourage all of you to find out who your State Senators and Rep's are (if you have that system, it's different in different states sometimes). If they won't take your call or answer a direct email, you need to ask yourself why they are in office. To their credit, I got an immediate email reply from my Rep and after a few false starts, got a lengthy personal call from our State Senator as well when I tried to get a hold of them. Hell, that's the most direct contact I've had with an Indiana politician...well.. ever. It was kind of cool. I highly recommend giving it a shot, especially if something is going on you don't like (or do like for that matter) within ear shot of an election, which is the most likely time to have your call returned.

I am still getting some feedback from folks about studios. I've also had discussions with Joey Finger from sessionplayers.com and Mark Keefner from Waymo Music. Mark is currently working with JPF members Chuck Crowe and Fran Lucci and of course Sessionplayers.com, in addition to having a bunch of world class (and famous) players to choose from, also recently hired our own Christine Mascott (another successful JPF networking effort!) so we have a good friend and ally right in the middle of that company, both in Christine and Joey as well. I am also entertaining feedback about other companies. I am really happy to see 3 of our allies prominently being discussed on the General message board. TAXI, Disc Makers and Muses Muse. Make sure you peek in on those discussions when you get a chance.

I realized that we've already flagged nearly as many songs this year as all of last year and only half the genres are done in round 3. I knew the material was great, but this proves it in sheer numbers. Last time we flagged app. 2700 songs for the final 800 nomination slots. We're at 2650 already with half to go for the roughly 1000 song nomination slots this time around. And some big genres are still to go so we'll likely have 5500-6500 songs flagged after round 3. Those are all nomination quality offerings that we'll have to cut down to 1 out of 6. That's going to be tough! But it's really fun to be surrounded by all this amazing and diverse music.

So that's what's on my mind this morning. What are you thinking today?

When my kids were not yet in school, I was working a lot in the clubs and bars here. I'd get home at 3 or 4 in the morning, then get up to take care of the kids at about 7am. One Saturday morning, while my wife was home and I was working in the garden, I began to have funny feelings in my chest. Soon I found that my heart was skipping beats...maybe one beat skipped for every 8 or 10.

The next week found me at a cariology center, running on a treadmill looking like a marionette with all these wires attached. As I suspected, since I was excercising regularly, I got my heart rate up over 180bpm and it was my legs that finally started to give out. Why was I, who excercised a lot, and ate well having PVC's (Pre Venticular Contractions, a form of arrhythmia)?

After wearing a portable EKG for a few days and measuring my caffeine intake (a big cup may be two actual cups in measurement) I found out I was averaging under 5 hours sleep a night and drinking over a dozen cups of coffee a day. There were no alternatives, I had to get seven to eight hours of sleep a night and stop the coffee and even chocolate.

Now If I sleep less than six hours a night, I take a nap, I drink no more than three big cups of coffee and quit in the early afternoon, and my heart has stopped beating a reggae beat and has gone back to the rhythm of the romantic cha cha.

All the Best,Mike

------------------You have to practice improvisation. -Art Tatum

[This message has been edited by Mike Dunbar (edited 05-20-2006).]

You've got to know your limitations. I don't know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way. -Johnny Cash

It's interesting that as an independent you can't vote in the primaries. I don't know this first hand, (only having voted as a member of a party) but I've heard that here in MA independents can choose a primary to vote in..either Dem or Rep.... am I just trippin' or has anyone else heard of this?

I was pleasantly surprised by the response of my Indiana senator and representative when I wrote to them recently. First time ever. The wine fiasco just ticked me off so much, and the telecom bill of which I am uncertain it is a good deal for the citizens. It just honks me off that EVERY time the voting always seems to go the way of how the big money spends on lobbying, rather than to what is right. But, on both of these issues, they seemed to actually be trying to do the right thing. I was glad Garton got the boot, I think he held up a lot of stuff and then was so brazen about universal lifetime health care for members of the house and senate.

Our governor is actually a good man, and tries to do the right thing even though unpopular (the sign of somebody trying to get something accomplished). Even though I hate the fact of a foreign company running something I bought with tax money, I have to be disciplined enough to hold back that instinct and look at the bigger picture. The bigger picture says Major Moves was the right choice.

Well, here in California, the primary isn't until June 6. I think independents can vote in them too. We've got 2 Democratic candidates for governor running attack ads against each other. I think they oughta start attacking Arnold, meself.Regarding our political advocacy group: when the house concert issue came up, I contacted my congressman and both my senators about it - in my own name, I can't bring up JPF until JPF officially takes a position on something. What I'm saying is we need a leader. I think you should appoint a leader for this thing, someone with the motivation and time to do the research and to lead.

We need a few more bodies involved before we can really get much done. Out of the 100 or so that intitially stepped up, only a handful even posted a note on the message boards as requested or answered my follow up emails. So I am not rushing this process. I'd love to have a full functioning slate of folks in place by the time the big national elections come up in 2008. In the meantime, we'll do as much and go as far as we can to get folks talking and involved. It was really too early for us this year for the primaries and likely will be tough to even be effective by November 2006, especially with all the awards work ahead of us.

As for voting, it's my understanding that you can either vote Dem or Republican but not both in a primary. It's rare that I support a straight slate of either party and in some cases I actually prefer a third party when there's an option. Perhaps I am mistaken and if so, please fill me in. If that is the case then I blew it for our primary.